


Contamination

by Marabelline



Series: Defamation [1]
Category: Ben 10 Series
Genre: Gen, Mild Language, will tag as I go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 21:18:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19259356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marabelline/pseuds/Marabelline
Summary: It's December of 2018, and with her team reunited and Callie Martin having finally graduated from college, she goes back on patrol in New York City for the first time since she's graduated college. Her first night back leads to her encountering an old enemy, as well as potential allies caught in the fray.  What's with the strange tattoo on her longtime nemesis' arm? What is the "Condensory"? What was it she was trying to find? The teams band together for just a little while to try and find answers and hopefully protect others in the process, but end up spiraling deeper into danger and a conspiracy that spans as far back as the 1950s.





	Contamination

_ I don’t want words to sever me from reality.  
_ _ I don’t want to need them. I want nothing  
_ _ to reveal feeling but feeling - as in freedom,  
_ _ or the knowledge of peace in a realm beyond,  
_ __ or the sound of water poured in a bowl.

\- Henri Cole, “Gravity and Center”

 

“You have nowhere else to go.”

The tone was calm - friendly, even - but the words made her wish she was deaf. The room was dark, save for the feeble lightbulb that flickered on and off every so often, and smelled faintly of anesthetic that no amount of sickeningly sweet air-freshener could cover up. There was a heaviness in her chest and her throat felt dry.

“What do you mean?” She did not look, but she raised a hand to the mark she bore on one arm. She had seen the pattern every day since she had come here, and it was a reminder of the world she couldn’t escape.

The other occupant of the room stared down at her - she was only a little bit shorter, but it was because she was seated that she felt so small as the other towered above her.

“You know how the world’s treated you like shit even before they knew about what you are. Now that this has happened, what makes you think they’ll think any differently of you? You’ve already made a bad name for yourself.”

“I can change,” she said. She knew it wasn’t true. She wouldn’t be able to change. There was something about contaminating other people that made her feel less wrong - something about dragging people down with her.

“No you can’t. You’re on the run.” The figure crossed her arms. “Ruiz… your own abilities are killing you. You won’t be able to find the treatment anywhere else. Without what we’re giving you, you wouldn’t last that long - a year at  _ most _ . As much as you’d hate to admit it, you  _ need  _ us.”

She looked away. She didn’t want to gaze up into those dark green eyes for too long.

“I’m not trying to manipulate you or lie to you. I’m stating the facts. You need us to survive. They haven’t found a permanent cure, and I doubt they ever will. And we can’t just hand out the treatment for your condition willy-nilly either. So as long as you’re staying here and getting treatment, you keep working for us. Have I made myself clear?”

The tone was like a pleading mother (she remembered her mother’s voice but not her face, how she would end her sentences with “Ha quedado claro?”) or a disappointed teacher. It sounded like the two things that were the last sounds she wanted to hear in the world. She stared down at her hands and arms, scarred and pockmarked with scars and faded rashes that would come back if she tried to run.

She knew she was being lied to, but it wasn’t an entire lie. She really had nowhere else to go.

“I’ll stay,” she said. “I’ll continue working for you, I’ll try and find the people you wanted me to find.”

A smile encroached the other woman’s cheeks. “Good. You made the right choice.”

It felt like drowning, but she did not know how to swim. And even as she was wrenched out of the water, gasping for air and soaked to the bone, there was a threat dangling over her head of being pushed back into the ocean’s cold depths again.

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been looking at my old crossover story from when I was twelve, and I think it can be pulled off… I’ll have to re-write and edit a lot of it, since there’s far too many plot holes, but I think I’m getting somewhere. There will be OCs, but a good amount of them have been revamped and a lot has changed about them. 
> 
> Also, this story is self-aware at points. Not necessarily fourth-wall breaking, but the author poking fun at things she thought were cool back in the day.


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